DaaS To Witness Exciting Times Ahead

Desktop virtualization is a sweeping trend that can offer tangible results when leveraged effectively. In an exclusive interaction with CXOtoday, Ramesh Vantipalli, Head - EUC India & Systems Engineering (South), VMware, sheds some lights on this trend and discusses how VMware is helping businesses to reach the next level of growth with desktop virtualization.

How does Virtual Desktop Integration (VDI)enable organizations to manage and secure the desktop environments, especially with enterprises looking to access their applications and data from multiple devices with ease?

Enterprises are caught in a desktop dilemma. On one hand, IT organizations face pressures to control costs and ensure compliance, manageability and security. On the other hand, end users increasingly require the freedom and flexibility to access their applications and data from multiple devices and locations. This desktop dilemma—which pits end-user freedom against the need for IT control—can drive up costs, impact security and overwhelm IT resources. It is aggravated by the existing PC-centric computing paradigm, which is expensive to manage and restricts IT’s ability to respond agilely to changing business dynamics. To break free from this dilemma, organizations are looking for an agile, adaptive approach to computing that enables IT to balance business requirements with the needs of end users for a flexible, high-performance computer experience. That’s where VDI comes into the picture.

Desktop virtualization can enable organizations to adopt a user-centric, flexible approach to computing. By decoupling applications, data and operating system from the endpoint—and by moving these components into the datacenter, where they can be centrally managed in an organization’s cloud—desktop and application virtualization can offer IT a more streamlined, secure way to manage users and provide agile, on-demand desktop services.

Vmware has made a number of acquisitions in the recent past, one of them being the acquisition of AirWatch. How according to you the company will benefit from this?

Last month we have signed a definitive agreement to acquire AirWatch, a leading provider of enterprise mobile management and security solutions. We believe the combination of AirWatch and VMware will enable delivery of unprecedented value to customers and partners across their desktop and mobile environments. AirWatch is the leading provider of enterprise solutions for Mobile Device Management, Mobile Application Management and Mobile Content Management. With more than ten thousand customers globally spread across nine global offices, AirWatch’s solutions give enterprises a strategic platform to securely manage a rapidly growing set of mobile devices and an increasingly mobile workforce. With this acquisition VMware will add a foundational element to its end-user computing portfolio which will enable customers to turbo-charge their mobile workforce without compromising security. This acquisition will expand VMware’s End-User Computing group; AirWatch’s offerings will form an expanded portfolio of mobile solutions that are complementary to VMware’s portfolio.

How important was the acquisition of Desktone to VMware for DaaS and VDI?

The explosion of mobile devices, mobile and web applications, and increased interest in the cloud is driving businesses to re-evaluate their desktop strategy. As cloud adoption quickly gains acceptance, the market is ripe to leverage cloud technologies to deliver alternative desktop management and application delivery solutions and provide customers with a more flexible, predictable and streamlined way to evolve end-user computing. DaaS gives enterprises the ability to manage costs, extend capacity on-demand and reduce the time required when desktop loads change.

VMware acquired Desktone, a privately held company and a leading desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) provider to deliver clients an advanced multi-tenant desktop virtualization platform for Windows desktops and applications as a cloud service. With this acquisition, VMware instantly becomes a leading provider of desktop-as-a-service with the opportunity to set the course for the entire industry moving forward while placing VMware ahead of the competition in this category of cloud computing. We believe that the combination of the Desktone DaaS platform along with VMware Horizon View will significantly accelerate VMware’s DaaS strategy and further extend the benefits of desktop virtualization by offering an excellent choice for organizations looking for predictable economics, flexibility of cloud deployment or a way to deploy VDI with limited resources or in-house expertise.

How can VMware’s latest EUC solutions benefit CIOs in the VDI space?

VMware Horizon Suite provides a complete end-user computing solution to enterprise organizations. The Horizon Suite allows IT admins to optimize their current EUC environment while delivering new capabilities to end users. IT admins get more management control and flexibility with less complexity and security risk. End users get a better and more productive experience. It is ideal for organizations that want to transform their end-user assets—such as operating systems, applications and data—from computing silos into centralized IT-managed services.

What trends do you foresee in the end user computing space?

Just as the delivery of applications has been transformed by the cloud business model and the software-defined data center technologies that underpin them, the mobile client is undergoing enormous change. The rise of mobile computing is unstoppable. These devices not only enable simple access to applications anytime and anyplace, but they also allow those applications to be massively personalized in real time, based on the capabilities of the client device itself – location, video capture, and audio capture. The end of 2012 saw the sales of smart devices (smart phones and tablets) overtake the sales of PCs and laptops. And in 2013 we saw the total installed base of smart devices overtake PCs and laptops. When you add the fact that the majority of all new applications are now written to run natively on either Android or iOS, it becomes pretty obvious that how we consume applications and data is in the process of radical change.

As part of this broader movement, we also predict 2014 to be a big year for Desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) and an exciting space to watch out for. With users demanding greater mobility and access while IT departments look for ways to reduce TCO of enterprise desktops, DaaS is an ideal approach for enabling/delivering access to business critical Windows applications for mobile users in a cost effective manner.

While many believe CIO's role is evolving and that he's occupying a key place in the boardroom, a recent study brings to light that more than half of the CIO, CTO or IT admin staff (55%) are not thanked by colleagues for carrying out essential IT tasks on their behalf.